Playing House

The Liberhan report discussion,years too late,was an occasion for Indian politics to confront and come to terms with its own past.

The Liberhan report discussion,years too late,was an occasion for Indian politics to confront and come to terms with its own past. But instead of a full accounting for Ayodhya,what our Parliament gave the public was an incoherent melee. Through Home Minister P. Chidambarams speech,BJP members crowded the well of the House and yelled slogans,while others chucked paper balls at him,effectively drowning out the home ministers voice. The din was ostensibly sparked by a derogatory reference to Atal Bihari Vajpayee but Chidambarams offer to apologise on behalf of the MP who made that remark,and the speakers assurance that it had been deleted from House records,were ignored by the furious BJP. The House was adjourned twice.

The Babri Masjid demolition and its political afterlife have crucially shaped India. So this revisiting of the incident was bound to be a charged and disputatious affair.

Deliberative democracy is built on deep and important disagreements,and it is only natural that the Liberhan report would inflame every actor in the Ayodhya drama. Early on,the BJP decided to finesse its response,denying individual culpability while at the same time,seeking to rally the Hindu base by trumpeting its pride in the cause. The Congress,throwing Narasimha Rao under the bus and declaring that it had paid the political price for complicity (without actually apologising),held the Sangh Parivar responsible for the pre-planned,conspiratorial and cold-blooded destruction of the masjid.

While these responses are unsurprising,the Liberhan debate could have been an opportunity for our parties to test each others combative claims,investigate chinks and evasions,and seek some measure of common understanding. Instead,what we got was a contagion of boorish behaviour. The BJPs too-clever-by-half strategy also failed,as instead of crafty orchestration of this moment,it just ended up speaking in several voices all at once,signifying nothing. The debate collapsed into accusation and counter-accusation. Each party seemed locked into its own echo-chamber,and ultimately,instead of coming away with some attempt at closure,we are left with the same old colliding narratives.